Real-Time Strategy Six-Pack (#1): Tom Clancy's EndWar

"Ubisoft Shanghai Creative Director Michael De Plater has a unique answer to the challenge of using a gamepad to control a strategy game. One, in hindsight, that seems pretty obvious:

Just get rid of it…

…Or at least, minimize it as much as possible. De Plater insists that EndWar, his team's new entry into the expanding Clancy-verse, is designed from the ground up for consoles. But, he admits, "everyone says that." So, his solution? Easy. "Everything in the game is done with the D-pad and A-button," he tells us.

"Or voice control."

Wait, what? Anxious to see if De Plater's bold claims were legit or just another SWAT: Global Strike Team vocal façade, we went "voice-on" with the skirmish mode in a pre-alpha build of his new RTS, and we came away shocked…and thoroughly impressed."